Comic description

How the Wizard Came to Oz is the story of a clever ventriloquist named Oscar Zoroaster Diggs who is carried away by a balloon to the Land of Oz, where he quickly runs afoul of the Wicked Witch of the West and her sister the Wicked Witch of the East. This comic is based on my book 'How the Wizard Came to Oz' that was published in 1991.

Authors

donabbottI am the author and illustrator of six children's, 'How the Wizard Came to Oz' being the first, as well as a number of freelance cartoons.

Most recent comments left on How the Wizard Came to Oz

Joseph Bongiorno (Guest)17th Jun 2018

"Wizard's arrival"

Hey Donald, sorry I missed your response until now. The region was called Omaha from at least as early as 1813 when Manuel Lisa established a large trading post there. Omaha is named after the tribe that lived there. So it was called that long before it was established by the U.S. in 1854.

I have Oscar's birth year as 1848. Allow me to explain how we know 1871 is the correct date for his arrival in Oz (this is taken from www.oztimeline.net):

"The Wizard states in Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz that he ruled in Oz 'for many years' [p. 195], which indicates that he had been in Oz for some time prior to Dorothy's arrival. Hot-air ballooning did not take off in circuses and traveling fairs until 1871, months after Leon Gambetta's highly publicized balloon escape from the Prussian armies in Paris to Southern France, after which ballooning sprang up overnight across circuses and fairs. After only a few years, however, solo balloon shows were no longer trendy or novel, and circuses had to add acrobats to spice things up.

A point has been made that the Wizard’s city of origin, Omaha, was not established until 1854, thereby limiting Oscar Diggs' age, however, he may have been born in the region of Omaha prior to it being officially named such, as Omaha is the name of the Native American tribe that lived in that region, and it appears to have been called Omaha from as early as 1813 when Manuel Lisa established a large trading post there.

Your timeline on when the Wizard arrived in the Land of Oz is probably a little off. Following a treaty with the Omaha tribe, the Nebraska Territory was created as part of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the City of Omaha was founded on July 4, 1854. Since in "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" the Wizard states he was born in Omaha, even if he were born in 1854 he would be roughly 17 year old when he arrived in Oz. This would make him far to young to become a master ventriloquist, and the Wizard also states he was a young man - not a boy - when he arrived. He had to have landed in Oz much later than 1871 if we use historical facts.